Card Syndicate Jackpot

Last Updated: Thursday 22nd November 2007, 10:02 am

A syndicate won a Lotto jackpot worth £4.8 million on Saturday 17 November. The syndicate consists of seven members, all of which are employed by Hythe Offset Printing, a card printing company based in Colchester. Each member will enjoy a £685,773 share of the £4,800,414 jackpot that was scooped by matching the numbers 11, 16, 20, 22, 27 and 46.

Karen Radley is the syndicate leader and explained that the group has been playing the lottery for two years. The most they have ever won previous was £10, although they have achieved this on a few occasions. Karen bought the jackpot winning ticket from her local Sainsbury’s store and realised that they had won on Saturday night when she checked the number on teletext. However, rather than telling the other members straight away she decided to wait until the win was confirmed the following morning.

“I was so excited I couldn’t sleep and really tempted to call everyone, but wanted to be sure so essentially I had the sleepless night on Saturday and the others on Sunday,” Karen said. “We are all just so thrilled and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of people.”

Many lottery syndicates stick with the same set of numbers from draw to draw, but the Hythe Offset syndicate do things differently. “We change our numbers regularly and strangely enough I picked these numbers a couple of weeks ago at random from an old lottery ticket,” Karen explained. “You could say this was our own Lucky Dip.”

The syndicate members are now making their shopping lists and deciding how their windfalls will impact their lives. One member is already planning to work on a part-time basis so that he can spend more time with his baby son. Another is planning to retire. But the remainder will continue working at the printing company. “It’s a great company and we all really enjoy working together,” Karen explained.